Just spent four great days at the “Home Ranch” in Clark, Colorado.  Great meals, great people(staff and guests) and great scenery and accommodations make for a very enjoyable time.

I have never missed the morning wrangle of getting the horses in in all the years I have been going there.  It is just a great way to start the day to get horseback and trot out and bring a bunch of horses in.  It is the best thing in the world for a young horse to get them moving out and forward with their mind.

I like to long trot.  When you trot it is real easy to to keep your horse with you mentally and physically.  You can swing them up to a real extended long trot and them shorten it up to slow down and the horse stays with you mentally because of the way his body moves in the diagonal of the trot. It’s easy to keep a horse soft in the trot and not get stiff in the face and through his body. In the trot, the balance point of the horse is right with you or under you, and it is easy to speed up or slow down.

The lope is a gate that three feet are going together.  The horse must push much more from behind and has lots of momentum up and this sends the mind out forward and puts the balance point ahead of the horse and rider.  With a young horse or one that wants to run off, it hard sometimes to bring the balance point back with the reins because it is way out in front.  With a horse that might want to go quite a bit, I feel it is important to take them from the long trot up to the lope and then bring them back to the trot before they get scared and the balance point is so far out there you can’t bring it back.  This is what is so great about jingling horses in.  They draw the horse your on forward and you can bring them back.  If you can do it strait and not circle or bend the horse, it really helps to get the the mind and the feet much better and the horse understands much quicker.  

Most of the guest want to lope.  It is very exiting for them.  They all take off and most of them are behind the action and out of control and that is a big thrill.  When they take off they want to be in the lope as fast as possible, and if they weren’t on good horses, they would be way behind the balance point and the more they bounce and flop the more they would be sending their horse forward.

If they were riding a colt or less experienced horse they would have a huge wreck.  This is the challenge of having a dude horse.  You need something safe but responsive enough for the guest to enjoy themselves.  Tough to find a horse that fits the bill and harder to keep em good.

I rode two nice young horses while at the Home Ranch, and halter broke a baby.  I really enjoy that part of my time at the ranch.  I get to ride and make changes on horses for the better.  It’s such a great feeling I get working with these horses.  To make positive changes without using excessive or the wrong kind of pressure is what I really am working on and enjoy so much.

Sitting on the plane headed to Calgary I was thinking things over.  I think lots of people are loping through life, on the edge of a runaway.  We try to do to much to fast sometimes and our horse runs off, or we don’t do enough and our horse(life) gets dull and we don’t get very far.  When you are in a long trot you can still see what you need to see, and if you need to lope it’s an easy transition, just as slowing down and enjoying things is. 

This is a pretty good way to think about it.  I want to be at a long trot most of the time when I’m horseback, but able to move up to a lope or run if I need to, or slow down to a walk and enjoy the ride.  I think I will try to live my life the same way.

Many times people have asked me my favorite place is.  I’ve been lots of places in the last 25 or so years, and I will have to say one of the places I really enjoy is the Flint Hills of Kansas.  Because of the limestone rocks most of the prairie is not tillable, and it is the same as it has been for thousands of years.

I was asked by my longtime friend Ernie Rodina, whom I have worked for with Purina and Better Horses Radio quite a bit in those 25 years.  We have been through lots of good times and seen lots of horses and horse people together.

I have been on lots of organized trail rides in my life and I can take em or leave em.  If I’m riding a young horse or something that needs a little work I like it a lot better as I get bored otherwise.

The “Dream Ride” as Ernie bills it is very enjoyable to me.  I reunite with lots of my real good friends that I have met in the past in the Midwest.  I met lots of new folks that I really enjoyed this time.

A lot of cowboys are above a trail ride, and that’s ok but they are missing out on alot of  enjoyment and contentment.

We rode  through great country, ate good food(I think I had the best steak I have ever eaten on Saturday night, and I’ve eaten lots of good steaks) was around lots of good friends and like minded people, great entertainment on Saturday night, and we had a great cowboy church service Sunday morning, then finished with a great ride with no big wrecks.

I talked a lot with folks while riding, and I looked across this big old open prairie and I told a young fellow that if you woke up out of a coma you wouldn’t know if you were in the 17th, 18th, or 21rst century.  It was a beautiful site.

I was visiting with another friend and mentioned to ride good country on good horses, eat great food, and go to church and pray along with good friends you pretty much cover all the basic needs for my lifestyle.

So it was a real fulfilling three days.  I also got to spend time with some other good friends before I went to the trail ride that was real special to me.  We may talk about that some other time.

So when people ask me my favorite place is, most of the time it’s right where I am at.  Ryegate, Montana is a great place to live, but so are all the other places I get to live life, as long as you have what you need.

I’m on a big run and will enjoy lots of places in the next month.  I just landed in Denver and will be heading to the “Home Ranch” in Clark, Colorado for 4 days.  Then it’s North to Alberta to work in Feedlots with Shawn Wilson and Zoetis.

From there South to Ardmore, Oklahoma and a demo with Oklahoma Beef Council on the 19th in the Evening.  Then we do the second Stockmanship and Stewardship event in Montrose, Colorado the 21rst and 22nd of September.

Next back North to British Columbia and Thompson River College the 25-27, with Gord Collier and Zoetis,  strait south from their to Visalia with California Beef Council for a presentation at a bull sale Sunday the 30th.

As soon as I finish I will board a plane and head south to Monterrey, for a cattle conference in Old Mexico the 1rst and 2nd of October, then I fly to Cancun to Present at Zoetis feedlot symposium on the 3rd.

I’ll fly back North to be part of the third S and S event in Stephenville, Texas on the 12 and 13th.  From Texas I’ll go back to Colorado to introduce Temple Grandin and participate in the “Horse Summit” in Durango, and that is the 7,8 and 9 of October.  Then I finish up the run in Pasco, Washington for the 4th stop of the Stockmanship and Stewardship tour on the 12th and 13th of October.  Then its back home.

This is a great run and I feel real lucky to get to go to all these places and meet lots of people all in the name of improved Stockmanship.  It was a little challenging to get to all the places but it worked out pretty good.  I have one heck of a credit card bill this month with all of these plane tickets I have bought.

So my favorite place is the place I’m at.  The Flint Hills were great, but I am looking forward to the great adventures I have ahead of me.  I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Just heading home from the first of 5 Stockmanship and Stewardship events presented by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Boehringer Ingelheim, this one being in Clemson, South Carolina.  Real well thought out event that was way worth the money and  I can’t imagine why anyone would not attend if they wanted to improve knowledge and skills for producing beef in the modern day beef production model.

I have been starving for knowledge in the production side and quality of life side of animals for a long time, and the more I eat the hungrier I get.  I have spent lots of money on schools and seminars on grass management, animal handling and behavior, marketing and ranch management.  If you knew how much money I have spent on books and videos and audio tapes on these same subjects, and how much time I have invested in studying them, you would think I would be a bunch smarter and handier than I am.

If you look at a lot of the seminars that are offered by some of the “Gurus “ in the industry they seem to be very expensive.  I remember when I went to rodeo announcing school and I told a fellow that had been announcing rodeos for a long time how much it cost, he said I was a fool for paying it.  

The thing the school did was give me a few tools and lots of confidence to step out and get rodeos and go to work and it created a good income for us, and the return on investment for the $1200 was pretty good short term and that was the important thing, especially when you are a young family with lots of dreams but no money.  The thing I didn’t realize is how much those skills I learned and the confidence it created was going to help me all through my working like.  Thank you Bob Fiest and Bob Tallman for taking my twelve hun and giving me great value for it.  I’ll trade money for knowledge any day.

I’ve spent lots of money on Ray Hunt. I’ve spent lots of money on Bud Williams.

They have things for sale that I am willing to pay for.  They are both dead.  I wish they weren’t so I could learn some more from them.  Lots of folks are trying to keep adding to it, but Bud and Ray are done and now we are trying to teach in their name and it is not the same.  For me to pay the same money to someone trying to repeat or say they are teaching what these guys had in their head has never been a good investment of time or money for me and I don’t do it anymore.

I also spend lots of time learning from Temple Grandin.  She is a dedicated teacher of animal husbandry. I have not spent near as much money as Temple spreads knowledge in a different way.  I’ve read lots of her books and studied her videos and designs but have never had to pay for a school or clinic.  It’s a whole different dynamic.

With the gurú type thinking it creates a club type atmosphere.  If your not part of the club your wrong and the enemy.  This is very ego driven (by the club members) and I think very dangerous as it keeps you from expanding your knowledge and skills for you own situation.  YOU CANT BE SOMEONE ELSE!

(I am sitting in seat 8C on an flight home and the guy in seat 8D just got sick and blew chow all over the side of the plane.  I’m writing this to keep my mind occupied so I don’t blow chow!  Just thought you would want to know, and I wish I could be someone else that is somewhere else.)

So with all that, back to the program in Clemson.  It was a two day program that was focused of Stockmanship and Stewardship on the production of Beef.  The presenters were successful producers in the industry willing to share knowledge and instill confidence. Extension personal that are paid to research and present the research they or others acquire, and Ron Gill and myself presenting cattle handling and for the first time and to our surprise, (which we actually like)a trailer and transportation safety demo.  I had watched Clyde Lane do one last year, so I had a good template and then we added the live cattle loading and hauling aspect to it so it turned out good.  I would say something and Ron would have the facts and research to back it up in his head.  I don’t understand how he can know so much.  He knows something about everything!

We got along real good with our horses, the cattle did everything we asked or said we would do, even though some of the “club” members think what we do is wrong.  I feel Ron and I did a  good job of presenting ideas for those in attendance to take home and work cattle better and to explain to others how to work their cattle better.  We will keep getting better at presenting.

(The guy next to me fell a sleep, so I hope he’s better.  If I think about it I go to gagging so I got to get back to writing.)

So the folks that invested the time and money in the two days got this.  Thousands of hours of experience condensed into presentations from industry leaders in a variety of subjects from using poly wire and a fence reel to manage the yearlings that folks learned to grade for marketing abilities when they sell, to inspiration on starting and maintaining a family operation, and a very enthusiastic presenter on what makes a great steak in a meat cutting demo, plus a whole lot more.  Add to that great meals and fellowship with like minded people and I wonder why someone would not attend.

I don’t know what it cost, but the folks from the southeast that put it all together with the crew from the NCBA should be proud of the value they provided for those in attendance.  It will be a great return on investment.

There are 4 remaining Stockmanship and Stewardship events remaining in 2018.  Check out     https://www.stockmanshipandstewardship.org/ to find out more and sign up.

(My seat mate woke up and is feeling much better, turns out his father has a Hereford operation in East River South Dakota)